Hello 2013

Happy New Year!!

It has just, today, yesterday, dawned on me that in around 7 months from now, I will be on a plane, with some unknown partner (I hope I like her!), travelling halfway across the world to my place of residence for the next 12 months. This time next year I may be celebrating New Year in a very different way (apparently the tradition is to place 3 potatoes under your sofa, one with no skin, one with half a skin and one with a full skin, pick one out at random and that will determine your finance for the next year!), along with some very cute children and some alpacas leaning over our shoulders (...I dream of such things). However, I look forward to this distant yet strangely close reality that I will be taking part in in the near future! I can't wait to meet my first Peruvian alpaca. 

In other news, I have decided that I want to have all letters away to trusts by the end of the Christmas holidays. It doesn't sound like a lot, but believe me... it's a nightmare. I have spent a few hours trawling through The Directory of Grant Making Trusts in Edinburgh Central Library (scariest place I have ever been) and have so far been through H to U. I'm currently in the process of going through the few suitable trusts I have found, which there are not that many of, and writing them letters to ask for donations. It's a tedious task but I will hopefully get a bit of money from the work that  put in - one guy got £4,000 from trusts since he spent a week in the library during the holidays. I wish I knew how he did it!

Anyway, I've got a bagpack arranged for 12 January so I'm rounding up friends and family to help out. I hope you've all had a good Christmas - because I certainly did. By asking only for donations for my birthday (1st December) and sending my leaflet with the annual Christmas newsletter to various far-flung relatives around the place, I managed to raise £345 for my gap year, which I hope I'll put towards immunisations and travelling costs for when I'm on holiday in Peru! A massive thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

Heather <3